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Share some of your reasoning if you'd like too!

Scott x Allison x Isaac

Hey, there.

Just wanted to reiterate that Scott McCall was a VICTIM, and him initially wanting nothing to do with being a werewolf was NOT “whining”.

Peter was vile. Derek was not a good teacher. The bite was NOT a gift. Scott owed them nothing, least of all his gratitude.

There’s nothing “cool” about being attacked in the woods. There’s nothing “awesome” about having your choices and autonomy stripped. There’s nothing “fun” about being hunted. There’s nothing to “embrace” about being dragged into a conflict that has NOTHING to do with you.

Scott McCall was a victim, and y’all need help.

Genuinely struggling to write Scott. He's just such a bland character like a piece of white bread. An unseasoned chicken breast. Pisses me off

I found every character's voice except Scott's. Every time I write him speak I immediately want to reach through my screen and bonk him on the head like shut UP. Maybe that's because he's an antagonist (who's actually a protagonist bc of the unreliable narrator and the moral greyness of the plot) but still, he's so frustrating.

Fellow writers, how do you write Scott? What's he like in your fics? How do you like to portray him? Or how do you like to read him?

Let me see what I can do for you.

First, develop empathy for Scott. I'm not talking about sympathy; it's not necessary to like him. Remember how he was at the beginning of his protagonist's journey at the beginning of the show. He was a severely asthmatic loser nobody. His father was gone; his mother works long hours at the hospital. The girlfriend of the captain of the lacrosse team doesn't know who he is, even though he's actually on the team. His best friend is clearly dominant in their friendship and pushes him around, considering him a pathetic nerd, even though he does like him. As he says, he's spent his whole life sitting on the sidelines, but one night, that's no longer possible. Suddenly, he has to make decisions of life and death and determine who he is going to be right then and right now.

Second, recognize the difficulty of trying to do the right thing. Too many people think that being good is as simple as not being evil. But Scott had a lot of far less painful and less dangerous options in the show. He could have told his mother. He could have told his father. He could have left everything in the hands of is best friend's father. He could have sat things out. Or, conversely, he could have did what Peter wanted, what Derek wanted, what the Argents wanted, what Deucalion wanted, etc. Hell, he could have even let Stiles tell him what to do and, for example, left Derek and Peter to die at the hands of the Argents at the end of Season 1.

Third, recenter Scott as the protagonist of the story. An antagonist is an obstacle that the protagonist must overcome in order to continue their arc. Scott was no obstacle to any character until they made him one. He didn't go looking for Peter; Peter came to him to make Scott his murder beta. He didn't go looking for Derek, Derek stalked him and used him to find the alpha. The Argent hunters wanted to kill him because of what he was. Deucalion wanted to add him to his collection, etc. Meredith put a bounty of 25 million dollars on his head. He can't really be their antagonists, since they came after him.

Fourth, emphasize his strengths alongside his weaknesses. Scott was very kind to people, and that's not an easy thing to do. He was Stiles best friend, when most of the other cast members didn't like Stiles that much. He didn't judge Allison by her last name, but by who she was. He had hope for Peter who violated him again and again. He wasn't going to let Derek die or face the Argents alone, even after Derek lied to him about the cure, sole him out to Peter, and stepped on his neck because he had the nerve to talk to Boyd. All of this takes strength of character, virtue, and force of will. Of course Scott has flaws and they shouldn't be ignored, but he can't work as a character if you ignore his merits.

Fifth, focus on how the other characters see him. If you can't get into Scott, embrace why the other characters get into Scott. Why does Stiles panic at the idea of Scott not liking him any more? Why does Derek only come back to Beacon Hills for Scott? Why does Chris Argent abandon hunting werewolves to ally with them? Why does Lydia embrace her powers? These actions can lead you to see how his behavior affects them. It wasn't a coincidence.

Sixth, discard meta that has an ulterior agenda. Deaton didn't steal the Hale spark for Scott; Scott was manifesting alpha traits long before Peter suggested Derek sacrifice his alpha spark for Cora. Scott was not an unreliable narrator; he was talking about Alec's story, not the series. The only unreliable narrators were Peter and Gerard, who were shown to be unreliable. There's no way Scott could knew about Peter's and Kate's conversation in the sewer, Derek's and Paige's private moments, or what Marcel and Sebastian did in the French and Indian War. These metas and other metas like them are designed to decenter Scott from the story and justify ships or other characters being the center. If you want to write Scott in Scott's voice, you can't let these things -- designed to make him unimportant and unlikable -- influence your writing.

I hope this helps you find Scott's voice. He's a wonderful character and much different than the broody anti-heroes that seem to be so popular nowadays.

Also never forget that characters like Laura Hale didn’t even HAVE a character voice in canon but that never prevented fandom from dreaming up voices to GIVE her. The same applies to any number of minor characters given more prominent roles in fanon than the literal titular character of the show.

That’s not incidental. That’s deliberate.

There’s a reason fans who claim to have never liked Scott because he was just innately uninteresting never TRIED using the transformative power of fanfic to give him a spin that made him interesting in their eyes, even while doing the same thing for half the villains, most of the minor characters, and every single major white character to ever appear onscreen.

So much of TW fandom invested themselves in being RIGHT about their conviction that not only was Scott a bad character, an innately ‘inferior’ character to their preferred faves, but that there was never any possibility of him being otherwise, that’s how ‘deep’ the flaws in his character went.

That’s bullshit. And I think at their core, even the most diehard anti-Scott fans are well aware of just how much bullshit that is, and so they cling all the harder to the intensity of their dislike for lack of having better reasoning to cling to instead.

NO character is incapable of being given a makeover that makes them more interesting or palatable. No character is so inherently BLAND that there’s just no way that fanfic can add more depth, more layers, more nuance.

There’s only a lack of INTEREST, of INTENT, in finding some angle from which a character can be interesting, or building upon some element that can be used as a foundation to add more interesting elements.

Scott’s only so aggressively uninteresting to people who WANT him to be that, and nothing more than that. NEED him to be that, in order to justify just how deliberately and vigorously they sidelined this character for reasons that....

Ultimately.....

Never had anything to do with his character. Not when fanfic can turn characters who barely ever even EXISTED in canon, like Laura Hale, or characters who actively worked against even their own faves in multiple seasons, like Peter, into protagonists and heroes.

The real reason the vast majority of Teen Wolf fandom has never found a way to make the LITERAL MAIN CHARACTER of a hundred episode show into someone who could be interesting in their eyes, could never anywhere in any of all that screentime find a SINGLE THING to grab onto as a reason to care about this character or a possible avenue to explore him in directions more interesting to them than the directions the show took.....

Is because the second most fans acknowledge that he COULD be interesting or relatable, if they just opened themselves up to the possibility of him being interesting or relatable.....

They’d have to admit to themselves that despite all their years of rabidly insisting he’s inherently terrible and with no redeeming aspects whatsoever.....

The intensity with which they loathed this character never actually had a single damn thing to do with his CHARACTER.

And well.

Once you admit that to yourself, suddenly its a looooooot harder to avoid acknowledging when certain other implications about all that hate and disdain come out to play.

honestly

TEEN WOLF ⇢ 6x10 | RIDERS ON THE STORM

Always pissed me off that after EVERYTHING Theo did in this episode fucking Malia and Scott are like “He’s not pack.” Well you know what, fuck you. 6b just pissed me off even more.

So I guess they were just supposed to forget and forgive the fact that Theo killed Scott and that he backstabbed Malia and left her alone with her psychotic mother just because he helped a little bit?

You would defend white dick at any given moment, wouldn't you.

Does it drive anyone else absolutely insane that Stiles is usually right about people and Scott never believes him? Stiles was right about Matt. Stiles was right about Theo. Stiles is SMART and INTUITIVE. I just don't understand why Scott, his best friend, never believes him. Derek would have believed him.

I swear I want to muerder Scott Mcall (you get it)

And yet these people insist they’re not racist🙄.

I would respect @thinking-destiel-thoughts a lot more if they came out and actually said:

Because we don't think that Scott is perfect, we just don't blame him for being tricked by the villain, like we don't blame Derek for being tricked by Kate, and we don't think he's a bad friend for not believing in Stiles, the way we don't believe that Stiles is a bad friend for having so little faith in Scott that he tried to hide Donovan from Scott, which allowed Theo to lie to Scott in the first place.

But they won't. And we all know why.

P.S. Derek would not have believed the person he called a "hyperactive spaz." He would have side with the character he called brother, because he would have understood the burdens of leadership. You see, he didn't blame his mistake on the way Scott was looking at him, the way Stiles did.

Since I was tagged by @princeescaluswords , I’d like to address some things.

First, your comments are quite aggressive considering it’s over my opinion of something a character on a TV show did. I respect everyone, even people I don’t agree with - even people who tag mean things on my posts or come at me with aggressive language because everyone deserves respect, at least in my opinion.

Sterek poking aside, which was not made to be taken all that seriously, the point was that as I was rewatching the show it was frustrating the Scott didn’t believe Stiles like with Matt and Theo. He did know things and yeah, he was wrong sometimes, hence me not saying he was always right! Stiles was wrong sometimes. So was literally everyone. Again, not the point.

My point was about the friendship of Scott and Stiles specifically. If my best friend from CHILDHOOD who taught me to control my werewolf stuff and brought his fragile human life into perilous moments at my side, I’d give him a little more credit than “I thought you were joking” like he did with Matt. THAT was my point.

Lydia, Malia, Kira, Derek, and the sheriff all had their issues. But they weren’t Scott’s best friend since childhood. They weren’t the ones who grabbed a road flare and saved Scott’s life in a creepy motel parking lot. They weren’t the ones who were there when Scott was going through the transition like Stiles was.

I personally believe that Scott probably could’ve had a better plan than forcing Derek to bite Gerard. What was that plan? I have no idea! But I still think the idea of forcing Derek to bite someone like that was messed up. I’m not saying I don’t get that he went along with Gerard’s plan to protect Allison, but that doesn’t mean I like or appreciate the plan Scott mad or even that I think it was a good plan.

I don’t blame Scott for being tricked by Gerard. I blame him for dismissing Stiles when they’re best friends. Human or werewolf or whatever the frick, they were supposed to be best friends. And if I told my best friend of 10+ years that something was off with someone, I’d be devastated if they didn’t believe me. Especially if it happened more than once. And considering that, I wouldn’t take any major secret to them afterwards because I’d fear them not believing me; Stiles had no reason to think Scott would believe him that Donovan was an accident.

Derek believed Stiles over Jennifer when it came down to a confrontation, so the idea that Scott couldn’t believe Stiles over Theo and Matt is frustrating from where I sit. Yes, Scott was a hero who did some great things. That doesn’t mean I think he was always in the right or that I agree with things he did. I think that the way it was written made it seem like sometimes Scott was more concerned with clean hands than anything else.

No character is black and white. No scene is interpreted the same by everyone. That’s just fact. I’m open to discussing my opinion and listening to what you have to say, but what I’m not about to do is come onto my blog and be harassed about my opinion on a TV show. It’s not that serious.

For anyone who sees this: if you’re that bothered by my opinion, the block button if free to press. I have no problem with discussions, but this blog is supposed to be fun for me to post my thoughts about shows and ships I love so I’ll exercise my right to block people who get aggressive and rude.

The thing I don't get is why you think that Scott is supposed to blindly believe Stiles, when Stiles is pretty much always wrong. He occasionally accidentally hits the right target, but that's more because he distrusts everyone, than because of any instincts or evidence.

Scott canonically is a way better judge of character than Stiles is, yet Stiles shows he has no faith in Scott.

Take s5, Stiles showed his utter lack of faith in his best friend, by not telling him about Donovan. By abandoning Scott, when Scott needed him the most. Stiles allowed himself to be manipulated by Theo.

If Stiles had just told Scott the truth, then Theo would not have been able to blackmail him. But because of Stiles lack of faith in Scott, his best friend from childhood, who has never turned against him no matter what, not even when he was possessed by a nogitsune. Who let himself be stabbed and cut for Stiles' sake, because he trusted Stiles that much. This friend who would always pick Stiles side, no matter what. Because of this, because Stiles didn't tell Scott about Theo murdering Josh, this led to Scott being murdered, Lydia ending up in Eichen, and the sheriff attacked and almost dying, all because of Stiles' lack of faith in Scott.

It took Theo all of 5a, and saving every member of the pack, as well as seemingly gaining Stiles' trust, before Scott trusted Theo enough to let him into the pack and listen to him. And even then, when Theo told him about Stiles killing Donovan, he said he wanted to talk to Stiles first.

It was only when Stiles through his actions, aka verbally attacking Scott as viciously as Stiles was capable of, hitting Scott at all his most vulnerable points,( including attacking Scott's humanity, which Stiles knew was one of Scott's fears.) confirmed Theo's version of events, that Scott believed it.

At no point did Stiles tell Scott that it had been self defense. And Scott knows Stiles well enough to know how violent Stiles gets when someone threatens Stiles' father. (just look at Heartmonitor where Stiles under the pretense of 'training' Scott, pretty much tortured Scott with lacrosse balls, for the grand crime of saving the girl standing right next to him from being hit by a car, instead of racing across the parking lot to go push a full grown police officer out of the way.)

And even after all that, even when Stiles confirmed Scott's worst fears that Stiles killed a man in cold blood for threatening his father, Scott still didn't kick him out of the pack. He didn't reject him. All he did, when asked by Stiles, was to tell Stiles to go talk to his father, the one man they both know would do everything to protect his son.

One of the best things about Scott is how smart he is, and how extremely hard it is for people to manipulate him. It's one of the reasons why Scott is one of the only people Peter was never able to manipulate, Peter utterly hates how Scott repeatedly outsmarts him. Just like Scott outsmarted Gerard, and eventually Theo in s5b

It's why Derek trusted Scott when Scott and Stiles told him about Jennifer. That's a thing that's pretty clear, Derek does not trust Stiles, but he does trust Scott. Because he knows Scott is a good judge of character.

Because Scott protected Derek and his pack from Gerard, even when with Gerard threatening Scott's mother, it would have been far easier for Scott to just tell Gerard where Derek was hiding. Scott never told this to Gerard. Even at the end of Masterplan, Scott never told Gerard where they were going, Gerard had to find this out through Jackson.

At that point, Scott was given a choice, let Gerard use Jackson to kill first Allison, then Scott, then Isaac, then Chris... and eventually Derek, after using Jackson to make Derek bite him. Because make no mistake, Derek was going to be forced to bite Gerard, no matter what Scott did. The only reason Gerard made Scott do it, was in order to hurt Scott. Derek knew Gerard would not let them go, which was why he begged Scott not to do it, because he knew that if Gerard ended up Alpha, he'd kill everyone anyway.

So Scott did what people keep saying he should do, he made the hard choice, the grey choice, of making Derek bite Gerard, knowing it would lead to Gerard's defeat. And knowing it was the only way he could save everyone in the room. Scott could have gone all self righteous, refusing to taint his morals, but that would have meant needlessly risking everyone's lives. And would you really have wanted him to let everyone die, just so he could stay 'morally pure'?

Making Derek bite Gerard, was the smartest thing to do, and the safest, and Derek knew it. Which is why as we see in s3, Derek never once held it against Scott.

Since we see the things that Derek does hold against people, Allison shooting his betas, Lydia (against her will) aiding in reviving his uncle, and Scott not telling Allison about Victoria.

Biting Gerard was never an issue. If it had been, Derek would have brought it up. Unlike Scott, Derek is not that stoic about it when he feels wronged about something.

OKA Y BUT CAN WE TALK ABOUT SCALLISAAC FOR A MOMENT THOUGH BECAUSE I’M LITERALLY GOING TO SCREAM I LOVE THEM SO MUCH

i have never seen such a well-written love triangle (like an actual triangle though not a V or any of that bs) on television before. probably because there aren’t really any and i’m not sure if jeff davis even meant for it to turn out that way but it did and it just makes me so!!??!!!

THE AMOUNT OF PARALLELS BETWEEN ALL THREE OF THEM??

the vet scene in the pilot and the vet scene in battlefield.

the many times scott has warned allison to be careful and/or tried to prevent her from getting involved and the “i don’t want you to get hurt” and “dude it’s fine i can go alone” scenes.

THE TRUST THAT BOTH ISAAC AND ALLISON PUT IN SCOTT!!! “personally, i trust scott” “i trust you, more than anyone.”

BECAUSE I LOVE YOU AND BECAUSE I TRUST YOU???

THE BATHTUB SCENES

THE ANCHOR PARALLELS

SCOTT ANCHORING ISAAC ISAAC ANCHORING ALLISON AND ALLISON ANCHORING SCOTT

AND THEN IT WORKING IN RESERVE TOO

THEY LITERALLY ALL ANCHOR /EACH OTHER/ AND THEY ALL LOVE AND CARE ABOUT EACH OTHER AND IT JUST KILLS ME

Isaac has been weirdly silent and distant all day, Scott didn't say anything, trying to give him space. Only as the night came did he remember: Isaac's father died a year ago, on that day. And no matter how Scott feels about the man, he wants to be there for Isaac.

There is nothing more bewildering (or, frankly, infuriating) to me than the incredibly pervasive fandom idea that the The Biggest Reason Bad Things Happened on Teen Wolf was that Scott Didn't Do what White Men Told Him To Do.

If you don't stop loving Allison, screamed White Men, she'll betray you and your pack.

But he didn't, and she didn't.

Don't play lacrosse or try to get good grades or have friends, screamed White Men, or you'll kill people!

But he didn't!

Accept your nature as a werewolf, as a killer! screamed White Men.

But he didn't!

Yet, somehow, Scott's refusal to submit remains, to the fandom, the greatest evil ever. Not Peter's serial killing spree. Not Derek's manipulating teenagers and then abandoning them to their deaths. Not Gerard's schemes, or Deucalion's twisted ideology, or Theo's treachery, or the Sheriff's xenophobia, or even Stiles's insecure lies.

It's Scott McCall's belief that the course of his life is his to decide.

— FRANK BIDART.

They who made you, they made me, too. I see they can make us again.

#both being shaped and manipulated #gerard tries to force them both into these molds #the perfect hunter#the perfect monster #and the strange thing is that in trying to force them both to be enemies #he’ll probably end up turning them into allies #because he’s turning himself into a monster that they’ll both need to take down #teen wolf #allison argent #I have a Derek Hale problem

^ truer words were never spoken

…can scott antis be serious for five fucking seconds?

Character development

I wish this had really happened I’d be like ‘Bye Mayo!’

Theo: you've heard of elf on the shelf, now get ready for-

Theo [places a pot on top of Scott's head]: -a thot in a pot!

Scott: [pouts at Isaac with the pot on his head]

Isaac:

Isaac, standing up: Get ready for a bitch in a ditch because that's where they're gonna find your fucking body you little fu-

I’m aware that most of the Teen Wolf fandom agrees that Dylan is a good actor, or if not just good, the best actor on the show bar none. Which, okay, I do agree that Dylan is really good at carrying emotional beats, his comedic timing is usually spot on, and Stiles is very animated thanks to him. I don’t think that he’s head and shoulders above the rest of the cast in terms of ability (side note: my personal favorite actor is Tyler Posey, the best I’d say is Crystal Reed, who is also playing one of the best written characters on the show, but I digress), there are times when I feel he misses his mark and comes off as almost cartoonish in his delivery, and there are times where he doesn’t work for me. So, I don’t quite get when people herald him as a golden god of acting, but, you know, it’s my take. 

There seems to be a lot more to say about Dylan’s acting because he’s actually gotten a chance to flex his acting muscles on screen, Dylan has been afforded the opportunity to display his range as an actor, while others, chiefly Tyler Posey, have not. 

Now I’m not going to state that Tyler Posey is the best actor on the show, because he’s not, at least not at the moment, but I do think that he’s the actor who’s shown the most growth since the pilot (I’m looking squarely in the direction of Tyler Hoechlin when I write this, whose best bit of acting has been sarcastically raising his eyebrows). Tyler’s performance has really resonated with me, I just like Scott. What I like about how Tyler plays Scott is that there’s a natural warmth about him, he feels really down-to-earth, genuinely earnest. There’s also one aspect I can’t quite articulate, it’s his ability to click with his scene partner, it feels natural. 

The thing is that.. I feel Tyler isn’t being given the chance to showcase his growth or to even push himself, a lot of the scenes that should be his are given to Dylan, even though Tyler has really stepped up his game and is able to wring emotion out of scenes just as effectively as Dylan. It’s upsetting because as the lead he should be given the challenging scenes, the scenes that push him to his limit and beyond. So, while I’m happy that Tyler landed the lead role on a television series, I’m not happy with how it’s panned out for him or for his character. 

tl;dr I’m tired of seeing people hand wave Tyler’s acting as “bad” without taking the time to point out that he’s made demonstrable improvements. He hardly ever gets a fair shake. 

^why it bothers me when people refer to Dylan as the “break out” star whose expanding role “just makes business sense” while ignoring that, out of all of the cast, his character is one of those that’s been given the most opportunities for growth and development

it’s not as if he’s accidentally a fan favorite. that type of business opportunity occurs because of investment 

dylan has been invested in by the narrative

tyler has not, so yes, exactly, it’s unfair to simply say that tyler is a bad actor when the narrative doesn’t really, well

give him the opportunities to expand his skills or show his range 

i’d say it’s bizarre that fandom continues to ignore the weirdness of a protagonist being shoved out of his own narrative in favor of chattering on about dylan “simply being the better actor” but lol

people of color taking a backseat is the norm. it’s what the majority of fandom accepts and expects. its ‘natural’ to a narrative to the point where they can throw out other narrative rules just to enforce it.

scott/posey, the main character, can only be so in name only. they still require most of the shows energies and consideration to go into stiles/dylan.

Another problem is that people don’t notice how good Tyler Posey got, is because they never bothered to pay attention to him in the first place.

They mentally pushed traits onto his character, and pushed both the character and the actor into a box that never fit either of the two.

People ignore how different Scott is from Tyler.

I love both, but where Tyler is very much an extrovert, Scott is a clear introvert. But when people write fics, or talk about the character, they remove all the depth Tyler put into Scott. Just so they can turn him into a stereotype.